TRIBUTARIES OF THE MUNI.

55

She is thirty-five feet long,

a half feet deep; made, as The Muni, the river which

which they perfectly know how to do. These canoes do not sail on the wind at all; but before it, with their sails of country-matting, they make very good headway. Yesterday I measured our canoe. three feet wide, and about three and before said, out of one immense tree. I was now to ascend, empties its waters into the Bay of Corisco, in lat. 1° 2' N., and long. 9° 33'. It is formed by the confluence of three other streams, the Ntongo, a stream of forty miles length, whose course is S.W. by W.; the Ntambounay, which runs an easterly course for thirty miles, and then turns to the S.W. for forty miles more, when it disappears in the mountains; and the Noya, which runs from its rise sixty miles to the northeast, and then west for twenty miles more. The Ntambounay and the Noya have both their sources in the Sierra del Crystal. Their banks are sparsely populated by various tribes, speaking different dialects.

The Muni is, like most of the rivers of the coast, bounded by mangrove swamps; but near the mouth, where we sailed to-day, the highlands back were visible, and made up quite a picturesque The point forming one side of the bank at the mouth is high land, and on it several Shekiani villages are located, which look very pretty from the river.

scene.

As we ascended the river the banks became more swampy; and, at the distance of seventeen miles from the mouth, we came to a beautiful little island, formed by the junction of the Ntongo with the Muni.

The Ntongo flows from the northeast; is a considerable stream, on or near whose banks are formed villages of the Ibouay, Itaimon, and Shekiani tribes. It has probably a course or length of forty miles, and rises in the hills which form, in the interior, one of the spurs of the Sierra del Crystal. The chief product of the Ntongo country is India-rubber, of which, some years ago, considerable quantities were brought down to the coast by the natives.

Some miles above the mouth of the Ntongo, the Ndina, a creek, empties its sluggish waters into the Muni. The Ndina is but a swampy creek, overrun with mangrove jungles, back of which are to be found some villages, to which the well-guided traveler is led by native paths, which no one but an experienced woodman would

56

LOST IN THE SWAMP.

perceive. It was the Ndina which we were now to ascend.

As

the tide was against us, and was stronger than the wind, we put down our sail, which had carried us along thus far, and the crew took to their paddles.

When we had pulled about twelve miles up the creek, through a continuous mangrove swamp, in which the sluggish current of the river often lost itself, I saw that my men began to look uneasy. Presently it leaked out that they had lost their reckoning. They had thought ere now to have arrived at Dayoko's village-our destination and began to be discouraged.

So here was a pleasant prospect of passing the night in the swamp, where we were like to be eaten up by musquitoes, whose buzz was already noisy, and whose sharp bills began to make themselves felt thus early in the afternoon.

In the midst of our perplexity a Mbenga boat came down the stream, and, on inquiry, its crew told us that Dayoko's village was yet a considerable way off. They gave us, however, the right direction-an important matter, as in the approaching gloom we were like to glide out of the main channel into some of the numerous side "reaches," or bayous, which lead in from the main stream. Thus encouraged the men again took to their paddles, and, to show their joy, began to sing one of their discordant chants, rendered doubly discordant by the echoes of the woods.

Presently we came to a very small collection of huts; and here I asked a fellow standing on the bank to guide us up to Dayoko's. He was ready to do so, but seeing probably that I was anxious to get ahead, thought to make a good bargain with me. He wanted two fathoms of cloth, two heads of tobacco, and two pipes. This was unreasonable, and I at once refused to have any thing to do with him.

Nothing gives these people so poor an opinion of a white man as the discovery that they can victimize him in a bargain; and accordingly I was always careful to let no one get the better of me even in trifles. Fortunately the moon presently rose, and we were enabled to thread our way up the crooked creek, and found by-and-by the mouth of a smaller creek, at whose head Dayoko lives.

.

About ten o'clock we arrived at the village, having traveled that day about forty-five miles.

When we arrived the tide was out, and I had, in consequence,

DAYOKO'S RECEPTION.

57

to wade through the stinking mud-bank which lay before and, to some extent, defended the village. All along the shores of the Ndina are composed of such mud-banks, which at low tide are dry, and emit a most offensive smell, and doubtless cause much sickness.

The noise of our approach awakened the whole village, and the men came down toward us, with their old trade muskets loaded, and ready for a fight should it prove, as often happens, a midnight raid of the enemy. These people have the luck of Cain; every man's hand seems against them, and their hand is against every man. They are constantly quarreling, and scarce ever sleep without fear of a hostile incursion. The treacherous enemy comes down upon a sleeping village, and shoots the unsuspecting inhabitants through the chinks in their bamboo houses, then escapes under cover of the darkness. This is the style of warfare all over this part of Central Africa, except, perhaps, among some of the coast tribes, who have gained, in manliness at least, by contact with the whites.

They were greatly rejoiced when they found us to be their friends the Mbinga. Visions of "trade" began to loom before them; they opened their arms, set up a shout of gladness, and immediately conducted us in state through the village to the house génerally set apart in every considerable negro town for strangers.

Here a great fire was kindled, and presently Dayoko himself came in, his eyes not half opened, for he had but just waked up. Then came all his wives to see the white man, whose presence was already known, and pretty soon the house was filled and surrounded by most of the men and women of the village.

Then began the "salutation"—a tedious formality among the African tribes which our American people seem to copy in their "public receptions" of distinguished or notorious men. All the chief men of Dayoko, together with himself and his wives, sat round the fire, and, when all was hushed, Mbango, our head-man, began his oration. In this it is required that every most minute adventure and incident of the voyage up river shall be alluded to, and thus a catalogue made of every thing that has happened "from port to port." The speaker delivers himself in short sentences, each containing one of the many hundred memorable facts of the day's journey. All sit round silent and open-mouthed, and at intervals the chief men give little grunts of approbation.

58

AN ORATION BEFORE SUPPER.

At last all was told, and, to my great satisfaction, Mbango sat down.

Immediately all ceremony was dropped; every man carried off his friend to have a talk about trade, night seeming no objection, and the women began to prepare some food, of which I stood in much need.

About twelve o'clock (midnight) supper was ready, and I sat down before an immense basket of boiled plantains and a few boiled fish, and made a very hearty meal. And, this done, I was shown to my place in the house assigned me for sleeping, when I was glad enough to wrap myself in my musquito-netting and sleep till daybreak.

Dayoko.-African Royalty.-Foreign Relations and Diplomacy in the Interior.The Value of a Wife.-Negotiations.-The dry Season.-The Mbousha Tribe.A Wizard.-A fetich Trial and a Murder.-Progress.-Excitement of the Shekianis at my supposed Wealth.-The Ntambounay.-The Sierra del Crystal.— Lost again.-Approaches of interior Village.-Agricultural Operations.-Famine.

My first business on the following day was to talk to Dayoko about my expedition into the interior; in fact, to ask his permission to go, and to obtain from him an escort.

A stranger going into an African village and seeing the chief or king living in a manner as simple and as needy as any of his subjects—in fact, in no way conspicuous above the herd of blacks, and receiving even but little of the respect or precedence which is usually accorded to the most shadowy monarchs, would little expect that such a king possessed great authority in his own. tribe, and wields great influence among his neighbors. Dayoko, for instance, was chiefly remarkable as the oldest living man in his village. He was a trader like the rest, a beggar like the rest, and was very glad to accept from me a propitiatory offering of an old dress-coat which, having done duty for a whole winter in New York, had been put away, with other cast-off garments, for this very purpose. So far Dayoko, when placed in contact with civilization.

But Dayoko is the oldest and most influential chief among the Mbousha tribe. His age gives him great authority among his own people, and a judicious culture of the marriage relation has given the shrewd old fox no end of fathers-in-law in every tribe within a hundred miles. Now to have a father-in-law in Africa means to have a friend in need, a man to whom you can confidently send a bit of ivory or bar-wood to sell, and whom you call on in any emergency where he can help you. In fact, the more wives a man has the more power he gains in this way, and women are chiefly valuable because by their means amicable and commercial relations are cultivated and subsist between the tribes.